CityBeat's 15 most read stories of 2011

From alleged bigotry to pornography, from marijuana to music reviews, readers had diverse interests

My RSS reader has been flooded with "Most Read" and "Most Popular" lists for 2011, and, so far, each of them has struck me as not all that impressive. I mean, who are these readers who care so much about about Jehovah's Witnesses cleaning Qualcomm Stadium?

So, I logged onto Google Analytics and ran our numbers for the year. It turns out our readers have diverse interests, and they like us for the reasons we always thought they did: Whether it's porn, politics or protesters, our readers want stories they can't get anywhere else.

After our columnist Edwin Decker wrote a piece containing what he thought was a funny list of gay-themed biker gang names, SDGLN publisher Johnathan Hale sicced the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation on us. Decker responded with this sharp column full of sentiments seconded by none other than Dan Savage of The Stranger.

While CityBeat is undeniably in favor of medical marijuana, that doesn't mean we're not going to hold the collectives responsible. In this piece conducted in partnership with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, we exposed how dispensaries are doing very little to protect patient privacy.

Before Occupy San Diego protests began, SDPD Asst. Chief Boyd Long laid out his plan for handling it. As SDPD began staging mass arrests, Occupiers referred back to this piece, in which Long said he didn't foresee arrests or enforcing the city's illegal-lodging ordinance.